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Hong Kong regulator fines HSBC for regulatory breaches

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - 18:24

[HONG KONG] Hong Kong's securities regulator said on Wednesday it fined and reprimanded HSBC for regulatory breaches and internal control failings related to its position in the futures and options contract market.

HSBC was fined HK$2.5 million for failing to put in place adequate internal controls to monitor its positions in Hong Kong Futures Exchange's futures and options contracts to ensure compliance with the prescribed limit, the regulator said.

The breaches happened from May 26 to Aug 1 in 2014, said the Securities and Futures Commission in an e-mailed statement.

The SFC probe found there was a "lack of adequate knowledge within HSBC" regarding the bank's position limits and its state of compliance with the relevant regulatory requirements, the statement said.

It, however, added HSBC had since taken steps to improve its internal controls on monitoring of position limits and cooperated with the Hong Kong regulator in resolving its concerns.

"HSBC apologises for the breaches identified and reported to the Securities and Futures Commission in 2014," the bank said in a statement.

"The Bank has cooperated fully with the SFC throughout this investigation and has taken actions to improve our internal controls regarding our compliance with the prescribed position limits in Hong Kong. No clients were impacted by these breaches," it said.

SFC has been aggressively clamping down on operational and control failures in banks' trading businesses over the past year.

Last month it fined the local securities unit of Morgan Stanley HK$18.5 million for internal control failures related to disclosure of short-selling orders and comprehensive documentation of electronic trading services.